The first part of his life was dominated by the triumph of his truly unique gifts. We should never forget them. We should never stop looking at the movies.

But the second part of his life was more important because he refused to be imprisoned by the disease that kept him hamstrung longer than Nelson Mandela was kept in prison in South Africa. In the second half of his life he perfected gifts that we all have. Every single solitary one of us have gifts of mind and heart.

A wonderful and heartfelt tribute by broadcaster Bryant Gumbel, who praises a man who “gave us levels of strength and courage we didn’t even know we had”. His words give way to Bill Clinton, the final eulogist, who takes the stage to roars from the crowd.

Says Clinton: “We all have an Ali story. It’s the gifts we all have that should be most honored today. Because he released them to the world. Never wasting a day, that we could see, anyway. ... We should honor him by letting our gifts go among the world as he did.”

Two brief remembrances from Ali’s daughter Rasheda and the young Alessandra ‘Ali’ DiNicola, daughter of Ali’s longtime attorney Ron DiNicola. Now it’s University of Louisville student Natasha Mundkur. The 19-year-old, who was bullied when she was younger, called a terrorist and told to go back to her own country, credits Ali with helping her find her voice. “Impossible is not a fact,” she says. “Impossible is an opinion. Impossible is nothing.”

Now it’s Ali’s wife Lonnie at the dais, the first of nine eulogists. She starts by reflecting on the life-changing encounter with the policeman Joe Martin, which set a 12-year-old Kentucky boy on the path to immortality: “America must never forget that when a cop and an inner city kid talk to each other – miracles can happen.”

“Muhammad indicated that when the end came for him, he wanted to use his life and his death as a teaching moment. He wanted to remind people who are suffering that he had seen the face of injustice,” she said. “He never became bitter enough to quit or engage in violence.”

Statement from President Obama and First Lady

Valerie Jarrett delivers a statement from President Obama and the First Lady, who were unable to attend today due to their daughter’s high school graduation. “Muhammad Ali was America: brash, defiant, pioneering, joyful,” she reads. “He was our most basic freedoms – religion, speech, spirit.”

“Even those who don’t claim religion are feeling something right now,” says Ambassador Shabazz. She recalls how Ali was the last of several men “bequeathed” to her by her father and who remained in her life until his homegoing. Fighting back tears, she also preaches a message of love and compassion: “When you love God, you can’t only love some of his children.”

Venerable Utsumi and Sister Denise perform a Buddhist chant. They are the last of the speakers. Next is a reader from Ambassador Shabazz, the eldest of six daughters born to el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Dr Betty Shabazz.

Rabbi Joe Rapport is now at the podium. “Muhammad Ali was the heart of this city: the living, breathing embodiment of the greatest that we can be,” he opens. “He was our heart, and that heart beats here, still.”

He adds: “I am not the fighter that Ali was, and I definitely am not as pretty, but in my heart I am Muhammad Ali.”

Chief Oren Lyons, the Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, translates comments from Chief Sidney Hill, Tadodaho of Onondaga Indian Nation, on Ali’s struggle against the US government: “We know what he was up against, because we’ve had 524 years of survival training ourselves.”

David Beckham is here on an invite from the Ali family. The two first crossed paths at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony in 1999. That year, Becks finished second to Lennox Lewis, who is seated next to Mike Tyson in the gallery today.

A standing ovation for Michael Lerner, whose impassioned remarks spanned took aim at everything from drone warfare to income inequality to mass incarceration to banning corporate and private money from politics.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun Magazine, is next to speak. The two were indicted alongside one another years ago for their non-violent actions against the Vietnam War. “We stand in solidarity with the Islamic community around the world,” he says in opening.

Next to speak is Monsignor Henry Kriegel the pastor of St Patrick and St Hedwig Catholic churches in Erie, Pennsylvania. Kriegel said he’d never met Ali but was asked to take part by Ali’s longtime lawyer Ron DiNicola, who helped make the arrangements.

“Muhammad Ali opened our eyes to the evil of racism, to the absurdity of war,” Kriegel says during a short prayer. “We dare not return him to you today without the expression of our gratitude for him.”

“He was not Muhammad Ali the prize-fighter, or even Muhammad Ali the world champion,” Hatch begins. “He was ... The Greatest.”

He continues:

I first met Ali 28 years ago, almost to the day. I was in my Senate and office my assistant called in and said you have a visitor outside, and I was really surprised that it was the champ. The friendship we developed was puzzling to many people, especially those who saw only our differences. And I’d say that where others saw difference, Ali and I saw kinship. We were both devoted to our families and deeply devoted to our faith: he to islam, me to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He grew up poor in Louisville, I grew up poor in Pittsburgh.

The first speaker is Dr Kevin Cosby, the senior pastor of St Stephen Church and president of Simmons College of Kentucky. He discusses the civil rights struggle that provided African-Americans with “a sense of somebody-ness”, name-checking Joe Louis, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson.

“And then from Louisville,” he says, pausing for applause, “emerged a silver-tongued poet who took the ethos of somebody-ness to unheard-of heights. Before James Brown said ‘I’m black and I’m proud’, Muhammad Ali said ‘I’m black and I’m pretty’.”

He continues: “He dared to love black people at a time when black people had a problem loving themselves.”

The start time for the memorial service has been reset for 3pm, just over 10 minutes from now. Several celebrities have turned up already. The AP reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and rapper Common have entered through a VIP side entrance to cheers from a three-deep gallery of onlookers.

The memorial service at the KFC Yum! Center is late to start after the funeral procession began nearly 90 minutes after its scheduled start time. While we wait, here’s a look at Ali on Candid Camera in 1974, pranking students at PS 41 in Greenwich Village. Here we see the personality, wit and ability to connect that would make him such an indelible figure in American life.

It forced him to become even more himself and develop himself as an independent thinker,” said documentary filmmaker Bill Siegel, director of The Trials of Muhammad Ali. “And also to recognize that he had allies that he didn’t know he had, meaning white college students, who were coming around to where he was,” Siegel told The Guardian.

Civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson said the boxer was in dire straights at the time, describing how the period changed Ali from a fighter to an activist.

It’s one thing to be a marcher at a symbolic rally,” civil rights leader Jesse Jackson told CNN last Saturday, “[But] he lost of all of his wealth, he almost became a pauper, [going] school to school giving speeches because he’d gave it all up for his principles. That made him a very different guy.”

Ali funeral procession arrives at Cave Hill cemetery

The Muhammad Ali funeral procession has just arrived at Cave Hill cemetery, where the boxing legend will be interred alongside Union and Confederate soldiers, and President Abraham Lincoln’s law partner among others.

The Ali burial service will be private, news cameras have just stopped live streaming. Pallbearers at the ceremony include actor Will Smith, and two formers heavyweight champions, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis.

After the burial, a public memorial service is scheduled at KFC Yum! Center. Around 15,000 people are expected to attend. Ali’s life will be eulogized by American luminaries such as president Bill Clinton and actor Billy Crystal. The memorial service is expected to be delayed, because of a late start to the procession.

Among Muhammad Ali’s lesser known feats is a Grammy nomination. He released a spoken-word album in 1963, ahead of his famous knock-out match with Sonny Liston. The album is titled I Am The Greatest, according to Billboard. He was then known by his birth-name, Cassius Clay.

You can listen to the whole album below (each track is called a “Round,”), or just check out his cover of Stand By Me.

Muhammad Ali entered the ring 61 times after turning professional in 1960.

The Guardian has chronicled every fight, from the 1960 Olympic match against Zbigniew Pietrzykowski that brought the gold medal back to Louisville, the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle versus champ George Foreman, the 1975 Thrilla in Manila, to his last match in 1981 versus Trevor Berbick.

Muhammad Ali – 25 of the best photographs of the legendary boxer

This is not a surprise given the funeral procession’s late start time, but reports now indicate that the start time of the public memorial service at the KFC Yum! Center could be delayed by an hour or more.

Aaron Ellis (@aaronellis01)

ALERT: #MuhammadAli Memorial Service start time at the KFC YUM! Center has been delayed at least an hour from it's original 2 pm start time.

Thomas Hauser, the late Muhammad Ali’s biographer, shared many anecdotes about the boxer with The Guardian, including this one about the time Ali met Chubby Checker, the early rock’n’roller best known for his 1960 version of The Twist.

On another occasion, when Ali and Lonnie [Ali] were coming to my apartment for dinner, I invited one of his favorite rock stars – Chubby Checker, who lived in Philadelphia – to join us. Chubby drove 90 miles to New York. When Ali saw him, he started jumping up and down, shouting, “It’s Chubby Checker! It’s Chubby Checker!”

But what touched me most about that evening was an exchange that came after dinner. We were sitting in the living room. Muhammad looked at Chubby and asked, “Did you drive all the way from Philadelphia just to see me?” Chubby said yes. And Ali responded, shaking his head, “I can’t believe it. I’m honored.”

Chubby Checker, best known for his version of The Twist, once drove 90 miles to meet Muhammad Ali for dinner.

Children lined the streets along with adults to watch Muhammad Ali’s funeral procession today, exhibiting the multi-generational appeal the icon has. Several young men have also periodically run alongside the motorcade.

‘He was so real’

Stories of Ali from around the world have poured into The Guardian since his death on June 4, like this one from a reader called “keble”.

I grew up in central Africa in the 1950s and 60s, an era which was very white-dominated. So it was quite an experience to see such a wonderful sportsman and entertainer rise to such prominence. And he was so real. Not a political bullshitter like so many we see today. He stood up to both the government war machine and to the religious status quo. Thanks for being you.

Friday morning, hundreds of mourners and admirers gathered at an Ali memorial outside the Muhammad Ali Center in downtown Louisville. They added wreaths and banners and signs to a pile of others that had accumulated over the past week.

Louisville resident Vanessa Moore and her daughter, 26-year-old Marcela, stood shoulder to shoulder and stared at the photos and drawings of the city’s hero.

Chants of 'Ali' as funeral procession drives through Louisville

Crowds of onlookers are lining either side of the funeral procession, chanting “Ali” and “the champ” as the motorcade transporting Muhammad Ali’s body drives from AD Porter & Sons Funeral Home to Cave Hill Cemetery.

Ali, described as “a personality that transcended his sport”, will be celebrated today by American luminaries such as President Bill Clinton, actor Billy Crystal and former world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis.

Muhammad Ali was described as “a personality that transcended his sport.”

It seems that, like all things that Muhammad Ali did in life, his take on death was equally large.

I’m not afraid of dying. I have faith; I do everything I can to live my life right; and I believe that dying will bring me closer to God.”

More of Ali’s most famous words are here, including poems he wrote to opponents, commentary on race and words of protest against the Vietnam War.

A pair of split boxing gloves worn by Muhammad Ali during his 1963 fight against Henry Cooper are displayed at the Muhammad Ali exhibition entitled ‘I Am The Greatest’, at the O2 Arena in London. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

During my more than 50 years in the public eye, I have met hundreds of renowned celebrities, artists, athletes, and world leaders. But only a handful embodied the self-sacrificing and heroic qualities that defined my friend and mentor, Muhammad Ali,” Abdul-Jabbar said in a Facebook post on June 4.

NBA Bulletin (@TheNBABulletin)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Muhammad Ali: "I may be 7’2" but I never felt taller than when standing in his shadow." pic.twitter.com/lZkiE4O6Ih